Читать книгу Hollis Grant Mysteries 4-Book Bundle - Joan Boswell - Страница 6

After Kas left, Hollis made one or two phone calls, but her reaction time had slowed again. Every action required intense concentration and left her exhausted and doubtful she’d ever move easily again. She wondered if this physical reaction would be transitory, or if she’d spend months sporadically operating as if tons of water pressed down on her. The phone rang. She picked it up on the fourth ring.

“Hollis, it’s Elsie.”

Hollis wasn’t surprised. St. Mark’s relied on the practical goodness of Elsie Workman and her husband Roger to match the physical with the emotional needs of the congregation.

“Hollis, dear, we were shocked to hear about Paul. You can count on Roger and me to do whatever we can to help.” She took an audible breath. “You’re going to have lots to do in the next few days. I thought, if it’s okay, I’d come over every day to answer the door, the phone and organize the food everyone’s sure to bring. If you think it’ll be an intrusion, just say so. I won’t be hurt, dear—everyone reacts to tragedy in a different way . . .”

People could be so kind. Tears threatened to flow, but she took a deep breath and banished them. “Elsie, it would be great. I do need you. Come over whenever you’re ready.” The prospect of Elsie’s cheery intervention in her life lifted Hollis’s spirits. Her limbs felt lighter; she dared to hope they soon might resume normal functioning.

Twenty minutes later Elsie arrived, rustled up a toasted tuna sandwich, insisted Hollis eat and then sent her upstairs for a lie-down. When Marguerite phoned late in the afternoon, Elsie intercepted the call, and thinking Hollis would want to talk to Marguerite, trotted upstairs to tell her.

After Marguerite offered sincere conventional words of sympathy, she said, “Is Elsie planning to feed you dinner?”

“Force feed I’m afraid. You know Elsie—she believes food fixes everything. I’m grateful but not hungry.”

“Come over, and we’ll eat nachos or popcorn or drink gin. Whatever you want.”

“Gin sounds pretty good.”

“I have two hospital visits left to make before supper. Let’s say any time after six.”

Exactly what Hollis needed. Marguerite could answer her questions about Paul. At five thirty, she made herself take MacTee for a decent walk before she changed.

Clothes had always been important to her. Once, in a moment of introspection, she’d figured out the reason: she’d been a large, ungainly child, a great contrast to her pretty, petite mother who, unhappily, had dressed her only daughter in frills and bows, accentuating her size and making her feel even larger. Early on, Hollis had realized what the right clothes did for your self-image and psyche and, ever since, had been obsessed with her appearance. Even so, it shocked her to acknowledge to herself that, even at this moment of crisis, she cared so much.

After she’d tucked herself into a conservative pair of black wool trousers and a black and white patterned silk shirt she vacillated between a black or pink wool blazer before she chose pink. She rejected a large splashy brooch and selected a smaller one—a silver filigree star.

On her way out of the house, she passed through the kitchen and avoided MacTee’s eyes lest he take eye contact for a tacit invitation to throw himself against her and leave a residue of hair. Outside, she climbed into the cab of her ten-year-old Nissan pickup. Once again, as she did every time she faced the mess, she vowed to clean out the winter’s debris. An archeologist could read her history by investigating the layered strata.

Marguerite lived in a downtown residential area, where developers had converted turn-of-the-century mansions into apartments. Her veranda-wrapped brick building with leaded glass bay windows must once have epitomized the glories of Victorian living. Hollis pressed the bell beside the bevelled glass door and identified herself, and Marguerite buzzed her into the foyer. Inside, Hollis looked up the sweep of the broad mahogany stairs. Marguerite, in blue jeans and a yellow sweatshirt, smiled down.

At the top of the stairs, they hugged each other. The physical contact touched Hollis. Tears filled her eyes. She sniffed and fumbled in her pocket for a tissue.

“It’s okay. Cry as much as you want.” Marguerite patted her as if she were a colicky baby.

Hollis pulled away and blew her nose. “If I start, I’ll never stop. It’s . . .” She couldn’t find the words. Instead she pulled in a deep shaky breath. “I need to talk more than I need to cry.” In the hours since Marguerite’s call, she’d worked out the questions she wanted answered.

Marguerite smiled, “I’ll listen until you’ve said everything you want to say.”

They stopped in the tiny, functional kitchen where Marguerite poured two drinks—a gin and tonic for Hollis, a gin and orange juice for herself. She loaded the glasses, a large glass bowl of popcorn, a salt shaker, a pottery bowl of salted almonds and paper napkins on a red metal tray. They moved out to a slatted wooden deck sitting atop a flat-roofed addition to the lower floor. Furnished with five sling-back canvas chairs, each covered with different, crayon-bright canvas, planters newly stocked with geraniums and dusty miller, and a round, weathered coffee table, the deck promised to be a sunny summer refuge.

They sipped and munched in silence for a minute or two.

“I’m having trouble believing Paul was murdered,” Hollis said. “My mind circles around and around, desperate to deny or to confirm that everything was a bad dream.”

“I know the feeling. Except when they’re killed in southern states like Georgia or Alabama, you don’t think of ministers as targets.”

“I need to talk about Paul.”

Marguerite waited.

“You must have guessed, or maybe Paul told you, he didn’t want me involved in church activities?”

Marguerite nodded. “I wondered why, but Paul wasn’t one to explain himself, and I didn’t know you well enough to bring up the subject.”

“It was an agreement we made when we married. Paul said we both had established ourselves professionally and should maintain our separate public lives. He said we were too old to interweave our careers—I should continue my teaching and research and leave his work to him. I regret being a party to that decision.” She twisted her fingers together. “How could we ever have hoped to have any kind of a marriage when these were the terms?” Hollis stopped and stared at her hands as if they might help her reveal her secrets. “This is hard. I haven’t talked to anyone about Paul. It’s too late for our marriage, but for my peace of mind and because I’m a suspect and could be a target, I must find out more about the parts of Paul’s life he didn’t share with me, starting with the church. How did the two of you get along? How did you divide the responsibilities? To understand him, I’d like to familiarize myself with the details of his daily life.”

“I don’t understand the connection. Are those the only reasons? “

“And because I feel guilty. Even though Paul said he didn’t want me to play a role in the church, I shouldn’t have agreed.” Hollis gazed out over the rooftops. “But, to be honest, the setup suited me too. Because I didn’t want him interfering in my profession, I allowed him to dictate the terms. And not only from his ministry. Paul excluded me from other parts of his life.” She unlocked her fingers and traced the blue zigzag pattern on the glass. “It’s probably irrational, but humour me.”

Marguerite scooped a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “I can’t imagine how it’ll help, but here goes. Paul and I belonged to a team, an equal team.” She emphasized ‘equal’. “Paul didn’t like it, and I don’t blame him. I’m younger, a woman, and I have a masters of theology compared to his doctor of divinity. Nevertheless, our contracts spelled out the equality of the team. Fortunately, St. Mark’s hired me six months before Paul, and the intervening time gave me a chance to establish my constituency in the congregation before he arrived. Because we both considered preaching a strength, our contract allocated equal pulpit time.” She smiled wryly. “Paul preached more intellectual sermons, but he didn’t reach people’s emotion the way I do.”

She considered. “After our initial power plays, we sorted our roles. Paul did counselling, theologically based study groups, work in the larger church, half the visiting and attended half of the committee meetings. I did the other half, supervised the Sunday morning development program, made hospital calls and participated in ‘Roots and Wings’, a study group of Christian feminists working to achieve inclusive language. Incidentally, when I inquired if Paul thought you’d like to join us, he said no. I was sorry because I figured you’d add a lot to our work on the revision of hymns and the prayers to eliminate the endless references to ‘men’, to ‘sons’, to exclusively masculine terms, and the substitution of nonspecific terms like ‘people’ or the addition of ‘daughters’, ‘wives’, ‘women’.”

“He never said a word to me.” Hollis piled popcorn on a paper napkin.

“You’re kidding.” With her legs outstretched, Marguerite regarded her intricately beaded moccasins. “Paul and I spoke to each other at the Friday morning meeting with Zena, Barbara and Lewis, or whoever our current custodian was. Paul and I didn’t dislike one another, at least I didn’t dislike Paul, but we staked out our territories.”

“Can you think of anything different about him or about his routine in the last few weeks?”

“Because my office is upstairs, and his was downstairs, we didn’t run into each other. People come and go and, although you say hello, you don’t keep track. One thing I can tell you—Paul recorded things. He was detail-oriented, fussy about appointments and punctuality. Paul used his desk calendar . . .” She twinkled at Hollis, “religiously,” and then grimaced. “Sorry, this is no time for levity.” She explained “I guess I joke because I’m sensitive—promptness and strict adherence to schedules definitely are not virtues of mine. Paul never tired of pointing out how a disorganized person wasted her own and other people’s time.”

This was exactly what Hollis wanted to know. “If he kept good records, they may give me more clues about him. I want to see his office and his daily calendar.” She straightened and added, “Tonight.”

Marguerite’s eyebrows rose.

Hollis ignored Marguerite’s surprise. “I expect the church is locked on Sunday night. Do you have keys?”

“It is. I can lend you mine.” Her brow wrinkled. “I don’t think they’ve secured his office as a crime scene, but if the police are interested in his papers, they may seal it. Never mind, it hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t suppose allowing you to make a quick visit and examine his calendar will make any difference.”

“I won’t touch anything else or remove the calendar. If I see anything I think is important, I’ll copy it.” Hollis plunked her empty glass on the table.

“Another one?”

“No thanks. But tell me more about Paul. His counseling meant a lot to him, didn’t it?” She placed the napkin she’d absentmindedly folded into a tiny rectangle beside her glass. “Of course, you know we met in Halifax when he was giving a course on ministerial counselling at the Nova Scotia School of Theology?”

“You could have knocked me over when Paul phoned from Halifax and told me you’d been married. For a confirmed bachelor, and especially for a man like Paul, to be swept off his feet and marry within three weeks blew me away.”

“You knew about our upcoming divorce?”

Marguerite’s eye widened. “No. I had no idea. Since when?”

“Christmas. It was Paul’s idea. Things hadn’t been great, but I thought we could work out our problems.”

Marguerite started to speak and stopped.

“What were you going to say?”

“This is absolutely none of my business, but why did you marry Paul?”

Talking about Paul helped, but how much should she tell? Minister or not, Hollis didn’t intend to reveal her forty-four-year-old soul. But, given Paul’s tall, commanding presence, his magnetic blue eyes and his smile, it was easy enough to explain in terms of his sex appeal, to admit lust had played a role. “It mortifies me to admit it, but physical attraction . . .” Unable to finish the sentence she changed the topic. “The question is, why did he marry me? He said it was time to settle down . . . I think he believed marriage would give him more freedom.”

“Physical attraction.” Marguerite nodded her head. “He certainly had that, and he used his sexual magnetism to exert power.”

“You’re right about the power. Although I’m realizing how little I knew my husband, I do know power motivated him. I suspect he maintained his compartmentalized life to prevent any one person from finding out enough about him to exercise power over him.” They sat for a moment in silence. “Did he try to control you?”

“Tried, but didn’t succeed,” Marguerite said with a wry smile.

“Maybe control and power were the factors attracting him to counselling?”

Marguerite’s face froze. She rose and paced slowly. The third board squeaked every time she stepped on it. She stopped in front of Hollis.

“It’s a shocking thing to say to anyone let alone his widow, but I’m relieved Paul is dead. A situation arose recently. I had to act, but I procrastinated.” Her eyes filled, and she collapsed into her chair, slumped forward with her head in her hands. Her voice was muffled. “God, if only I’d been decisive.”

Her dramatic emotional reaction alarmed Hollis. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it . . .” For moments, Marguerite didn’t say anything. Finally, she lifted her head and revealed eyes filled with pain.

Hollis couldn’t imagine what Marguerite would reveal and didn’t know if she was strong enough to hear whatever Marguerite was going to say.

“Almost a month ago,” Marguerite said in a low voice, “a woman who’d been seeing Paul professionally came to me in a terrible state. She said Paul had initiated sex during a counselling session and, although she hadn’t wanted to because she felt it was wrong, she gave in. She’d ended the counselling sessions and wanted me to know what had happened.

“I believed her charge, agreed he’d been way out of line and said I’d speak to him and report what he’d done. I intended to confront Paul immediately, but I put it off. He would have challenged the woman’s story, said she was unstable, made light of the allegation. I did intend to act, to take the matter to Presbytery.” Marguerite’s voice quivered. “It’s no good saying what I would have done, I didn’t do anything and she committed suicide. If I’d acted promptly and reassured her Presbytery would consider her complaint, she might be alive.”

A sexual predator. Hollis wanted the words to go back in Marguerite’s mouth. “How horrible,” she said and thought what an inadequate word it was.

“The problem didn’t end with her death. I’ve considered what I should do—she probably wasn’t an isolated case—and I knew I had to track down other victims and bring Paul to justice. It’s cowardly of me, but you realize why I’m relieved.”

Hollis swallowed the bile that had risen in her throat. She thought of Paul in his office, seducing an endless line of needy, damaged women and felt sick. Not now. Time to share her suspicions. “I think he also was having an affair.” She avoided Marguerite’s eyes. “He often stayed out all night. The first time it happened, I asked him where he’d been, and he told me it was none of my business.” Hollis met Marguerite’s gaze. “Do you know who she was?”

“Hollis, you don’t want to know. What good will it do?”

“Yes, I do. Everything. I have to know everything.”

Marguerite peered at her moccasins.

“Really, it will help me,” Hollis said in what she hoped sounded like a reasonable tone of voice.

“I can’t imagine how, but I suppose if I don’t tell you, someone else will.” Marguerite leaned forward and addressed her moccasins. “Sally Staynor.” She concentrated on drawing a circle with her toe. “And there’s more. She made a scene in church this morning when I informed the congregation of Paul’s death.”

Great. Anyone who hadn’t heard would figure it out. Who was she kidding? Probably she’d been one of the few not to have heard about Sally and Paul’s relationship. “Is there a Mr. Staynor?”

Marguerite, looking as if she regretted telling Hollis, bent forward to pick up their glasses and place them on the tray. “He’s a butcher and owns the Chop Shop.” Marguerite shivered. “It isn’t summer yet. Now that the sun’s gone, it’s chilling down. Let me scramble or boil a couple of eggs. My mom always made a soft-boiled egg with toast fingers when we were sick or unhappy.”

Get up. Go. No more talk, no more revelations. She stood. If she didn’t get out of here, she’d explode, howl—she didn’t know what she’d do. How could he have done what he’d done? How could she have been so stupid, so unaware? She pulled her pink jacket tightly around her as if to contain her rage. Taking a deep breath, she relied on forty-four years of training in civil behaviour. “Thanks, but if you’ll loan me the keys, I’ll check Paul’s appointment calendar.”

Marguerite’s eyes widened. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, reaching forward to touch Hollis’s arm.

Was she? No, definitely not, but she had to keep going and find out everything. “Not great, but I’ll be fine.”

Marguerite looked into her eyes for a minute. “Okay. Bring the keys to St. Mark’s tomorrow morning. Barbara always arrives before I do. I’ve been a night owl since I was a baby.” She finished loading the tray. “Hollis, don’t get mixed up in the investigation. Leave it to the police.”

“Taking a peek at his calendar isn’t going to do any harm.”

At St. Mark’s, Hollis unlocked the green door and let herself into the vestibule of the church annex. In the eerie light of the low wattage bulbs, she peered up half a flight toward Marguerite’s office and down half a flight to a hall leading to a warren of rooms and Paul’s office.

The building didn’t feel empty.

Spooky.

She was being stupid—overreacting. Too much had happened to her in one day. Of course the building was empty. No one would be in the church late on a Sunday night.

Telling herself not to be ridiculous, she forced herself to march downstairs to the lower hall.

When the total darkness inside the first open door seeped out and wrapped its tentacles around her, she walked faster and gave herself instructions. Eyes forward. Don’t look left or right. Go straight to the end of the hall.

Yellow police tape stretched across the doorway to Paul’s office.

Retracing her steps was impossible. She couldn’t pass those yawning doorways again. She had no choice but to rip the tape, fumble for the lock, rush into the office, flick on the light and collapse against the door when the lock clicked shut.

Her only other visit had occurred shortly after her marriage three years before. She’d dropped in to invite Paul out for lunch and been told, in a pleasant but non-negotiable tone, that his office was off limits. If she wanted him, she was to phone.

A room with a split personality. Cheap mismatched office furniture crowded the front. A couch, three upholstered chairs, a scarred coffee table, and a beleaguered split-leaf philodendron reaching frantically for light, huddled at the rear.

In the office section, everything on Paul’s desk reflected his obsession with order. Two books bristling with slips of paper marking particular passages sat precisely in the middle of the perfectly centred brass-cornered desk blotter. An empty “out” basket beneath an “in” basket stacked with papers awaiting the attention they would never receive anchored the left corner of the desk. A pen and pencil set in an onyx-based holder centred above the blotter lined up with Paul’s appointment calendar next to the phone at the top right corner of the desk. Hollis imagined him aligning each item before he got to work and thought how it had annoyed her when he’d insisted on realigning his cutlery before he ate a meal.

Her eyes were drawn upward to the black windows threatening her like the eyes of a loathsome creature staring down at its prey. Anyone might be peering down, watching what she was doing—a blob of matter under a microscope. She lurched across the room, snatched the dangling cords and yanked the curtains shut.

This panic was ridiculous. Taking deep breaths, concentrating on the air entering and leaving her lungs, focussing on meditating, she worked to clear her mind.

Impossible.

She told herself as long as she was able to breathe she was fine; to stop being an idiot and do the job—read Paul’s calendar. She dropped into the high-backed pseudo-leather office chair and, wrecking the symmetry of the desk, picked up the calendar, flipping back to March and forward to late May. No names—only initials. Today’s entry. Paul had been meeting SS at seven. SS. Sally Staynor.

So many entries. So many repeats. She made a two page list, ticked each time the same ones appeared and replaced the calendar. Tilted in the chair, she surveyed the room. What else could it reveal?

The drawers of the desk and the filing cabinet were unlocked. She sifted through the contents and realized why—the minutes of church council, congregational and presbytery meetings as well as his clerical correspondence deserved a triple dull rating and contained nothing of a confidential nature. Crammed with dry reference books—concordances, biblical analyses, famous sermons, dictionaries—the bookshelves offered no clues.

She concluded Paul had stowed his personal papers in his locked bedroom.

Time to go home.

While she’d worked, her heartbeat had slowed to normal, as had her breathing. The idea of facing the silence and shadows in the hall elevated her heart rate and caused her breath to catch in her throat.

To fool any onlooker, she’d leave the curtains closed and the light on. If it hadn’t been her imagination and someone really was watching her, this would give her an advantage. Whoever might be lurking out there wouldn’t be aware she’d left, unless “they”, no not “they”, “he”, waited outside the door.

At the thought of someone in the hall, she considered sleeping in the chair and slipping home in the morning when daylight and Barbara Webb arrived. But she couldn’t subject MacTee to a night of discomfort.

Nothing for it. She had to go.

Hollis flung the door open, assured herself the hall was empty, sped past the dark gaping doorways, raced up the stairs and wrenched the outside door open.

A door closed somewhere behind her.

The sound froze her hand on the half-open outside door. She must have dreamed it—too much shock—her imagination was running away with her.

She bolted.

While Hollis searched Paul’s church office, Rhona toiled at the station. Sometime after one AM, she allowed herself to go home.

When she arrived, the first thing she did was check the message machine.

“It’s me. It’s three thirty, and I’m heading out. I’ve got the night shift this week. Pretty dull Sunday. Wish you’d been here. By the way, I talked to a friend on the Toronto Police. They’re recruiting women and visible minorities. Think about it. Toronto is a great city—you’d love it here, and I’d love it if you were here. Call me when you can.”

She could buzz him on his cell phone. Not a good idea. Toronto was looking better and better. She wasn’t exactly a visible minority. Having a Cree grandmother didn’t precisely qualify her, although she knew people looked at her and wondered about her genetic mix. In Toronto, the city of hundreds of languages and nationalities, she’d be part of the majority, not the minority.

In her bedroom, she stripped off her clothes and reached for a flannel night shirt. She brushed her hand over the soft comforting fabric and knew it was one thing she’d have to give up if she moved—Zack was a guy who liked sexy lingerie.

She tried to relax but had her usual trouble shutting down. Warm milk, the time-honoured soporific, did nothing. Back in her bedroom, she popped Casablanca in the VCR. Together she and Opie snuggled down under the down-filled comforter. She lip-synched the dialogue but fell asleep before Bogart did the noble thing.

The demands of a murder case leave detectives severely sleep deprived, and Rhona was no exception. At seven thirty in the morning, her aching body and gritty eyes demanded more sleep. Instead, she reviewed her day’s schedule. The day seldom evolved as she wished, but she preferred starting with a plan.

At St. Mark’s, she’d talk to Barbara Webb and make a quick sortie through Paul’s files. Already she thought of him as “Paul” and his wife as “Hollis”. She’d have to be careful to use formal terms of address and maintain her distance.

Following her stop at St. Mark’s, she’d review the race program with Hollis and attend Paul’s autopsy. Finally, after lunch, she’d interview JJ Staynor at the Chop Shop.

Up and dressed in a black pantsuit and hand-tooled black cowboy boots, she scooped Meow Meow Chow Chow into Opie’s bowl. He rewarded her with a disdainful sniff. Opie preferred fresh cooked salmon, or a lesser but acceptable substitute, canned salmon. Rhona smiled at him. “If you’re hungry, you’ll eat it,” she said.

Opie sneered, raised his tail, swished it from side to side and stalked from the room.

In the St. Mark’s church office, Barbara Webb, hair upswept and fastened with a rhinestone comb, cradled the phone on her shoulder and murmured sympathetically while she did paperwork. She waved a greeting and changed the tone of her voice. “I have to go, Sandra. A police officer is here to talk to me. I’m terribly sorry about your Herbert. I know what he meant to you, how much you loved him.”

After replacing the receiver, she said, “Being the secretary is like being ‘Dear Abby’ without ten million readers.” She grimaced, “Poor Sandra Gardner has suffered a double blow. First Paul and now Herbert, her beloved budgie.”

Rhona smiled, “I bet your contract and your job description don’t say a word about sympathetic listening.”

“You’re absolutely right—it takes hours every day. But it’s important, and I love doing it. By the way, call me Barbara—everyone does.” She stood up. “A friend is waiting to substitute for me. I’ll fetch her, then we can talk.”

“I thought we’d use Reverend Robertson’s office. By the way, did you make his appointments and keep his calendar?”

“He mostly did his own. I informed him of upcoming church meetings, and he notified me of the ones he planned to attend.”

“Since you’re familiar with the congregation, would you go over his calendar with me?”

Barbara nodded and clicked out of the room on her red snake-skin high heels. She trotted back with a myopic, wren-like woman who acknowledged introductions and settled herself behind the desk, saying, “Go on. I’ll be fine, not as good as Barbara, a disappointment to the callers, but just fine.” The phone rang.

Jaunty in a red wool suit with a nipped-in waist, Barbara preceded Rhona down the stairs to Paul’s office. Strands of yellow tape trailed from the doorframe. The door was open. Barbara stopped abruptly, seemingly unaware of her ring of keys, which might have belonged to the chatelaine of a medieval castle, rattling like a chandelier in an earthquake. Inside the room crowded with furniture, chaos prevailed. Someone had dumped the drawers from the filing cabinet and the desk.

“Oh my goodness, it was locked yesterday,” Barbara said. “What a mess. Whatever was he looking for?”

Rhona gripped Barbara’s shaking arm reassuringly and turned her away from the doorway.

“A good question and one we’ll talk about in a minute, but not here. This is a crime scene, and we won’t go in.” She released Barbara’s arm and, remembering how Barbara had responded to the challenge of solving practical problems, asked a question. “What documents did Reverend Robertson have here?”

“Church records, research material for sermons, nothing secret.” Barbara closed her hand around the keys to stop the jangling. “Paul was a strange man in many ways. I always suspected he had secrets and believed everyone, me included, intended to discover what they were. I did his filing, and I can tell you with absolute certainty there was nothing significant in those drawers.” She released the keys and allowed them to swing from the ring. “Whenever he left his office before I finished for the day, he would stick his head in to say goodnight, and he almost always carried a lawyer’s briefcase. I’d guess he took home anything personal or confidential.”

Rhona removed her cell phone from her shoulder bag. “Give me a few minutes to report this. You’ve had a shock. Why don’t you make yourself a cup of tea? I’ll join you upstairs after the team arrives, and we’ll chat in whatever quiet corner you choose.”

When Barbara trotted off, Rhona surveyed the room. Stained beige furniture badly needing re-upholstering, flaking institutional green paint and dark oak-framed reproductions of third rate religious paintings. What a cheerless stage for Christian living.

She jumped when a hand touched her elbow.

“What on earth happened here?” Marguerite Day asked.

Rhona observed Day’s soft-soled shoes and realized why she hadn’t heard her approach. “The intruder wanted something. I don’t suppose you have any idea what he might have been searching for?”

Day’s attention fixed on the desktop, on the daily calendar open amid a confusion of paper. An expression of relief passed swiftly over her face. “No idea,” she said.

Why had she seemed relieved? Rhona removed latex gloves from her large shoulder bag, drew them on and stepped cautiously through the drifts of paper to the desk, where she picked up the calendar and flipped through several pages. “Reverend Robertson used initials. Any chance you can match initials with names to enable me to track down the individuals who had appointments with him?”

Day shook her head. “No, Barbara is the one to do that.” She glanced at the oak-framed wall clock. “If there isn’t anything else, will you excuse me? Right this minute I’m due at a meeting.” She turned and left.

Rhona extracted a plastic bag from her purse, tucked the calendar inside and dropped it in her bag. She made her calls and climbed the stairs to join Barbara, who led her to a small library tucked underneath the choir loft. Before they perched on slippery downward sloping leather side chairs, Rhona removed the calendar and handed it to Barbara along with a pair of thin plasic gloves.

“Please go ahead a month and back two and compile a list of the people with whom he had appointments. It’s a nuisance, but please use the gloves, because later we’ll check for fingerprints.”

A worried frown creased Barbara’s forehead.

“Don’t worry if you can’t match all the initials with names. If you think you’ll be finished, I’ll drop in after lunch to pick it up along with your notes.”

Barbara placed the calendar on the floor beside her chair. “I’ll do my best.”

“Reverend Day claims what you don’t know isn’t worth knowing—she says you’re the heart of St. Mark’s.”

“Well, I’m not sure about that, but it’s nice of Marguerite to say so.”

The two sat on the uncomfortable chairs that threatened to catapult them to the floor. Rhona extricated her black notebook from her shoulder bag. “I have to ask questions you may feel uncomfortable answering. I’ll understand your reluctance, but the sooner I familiarize myself with the details of Reverend Robertson’s life, the sooner we’ll identify his killer.” Rhona unhooked the ballpoint from the notebook’s cover and turned to a fresh page.

“He had extramarital affairs. I want the names of as many of those women as you can remember.”

Barbara squirmed and grabbed the edges of the chair to prevent herself from sliding to the rose-patterned carpet. Stabilized, she said, “You’re absolutely right. I don’t like doing this one little bit, but when I think of the murderer running amok in here last night, it gives me the heebie jeebies.” She released one hand from the side of the chair and patted a stray hair into position. “I’m often here alone. I won’t have a moment’s peace until you catch the killer. I’m prepared to give you any information—no matter how unpleasant—to help catch him.”

“Thank you. I know I’m asking you to do something difficult.”

Barbara acknowledged Rhona’s words with a tiny nod. Her chin lifted like someone about to testify in court where her words would decide the outcome of a murder trial.

“Here goes. I’m sure you know the current woman was Sally Staynor?”

“I do. What can you tell me about her husband?”

“He owns a butcher shop and has a reputation for being ‘weird’. I don’t have first-hand experience; he isn’t a churchgoer. Have you met Sally?”

“No.”

“She’s a woman you won’t soon forget. She holds opinions about everything, and she expresses herself like a stevedore.” Barbara made a moue of distaste. “Bad language is one of my hang-ups. I’ve never understood why people use profanity.” She shrugged, “But that’s my problem. Sally was the latest moth drawn to Paul’s flame . . .” The briefest flick of her turquoise shadowed eyes. “Let’s see, before Sally it was Denise Nielsen.”

Rhona jotted Denise’s name. Denise had been the one person in the choir who’d been visibly upset.

Barbara shrugged. “There were many women. He was a matou.”

Rhona’s puzzlement must have been obvious.

“A tom cat.” Barbara crossed her ankles and readjusted herself. “The United Church should classify extramarital sex as an occupational hazard for male ministers.” She spoke in a low and confiding voice. “Ministers attract women with emotional needs, and because many ministers have a sense of themselves as a little out of the ordinary, they come to consider the dependence and attention these women display as perfectly normal. When the men age, they have a hard . . .” She paused and flicked her glance at Rhona, “hard time resisting the siren songs.”

Paul’s office flashed into Rhona’s mind. No wonder the couch was worn-out. “Can you remember other women with whom he had affairs?”

“Not offhand.”

“To change the subject, yesterday, when Marguerite told you Reverend Robertson had been murdered, did you immediately think of any particular person as a likely suspect?”

Barbara recoiled. “You’re suggesting I should accuse a specific person of murder?”

“I expressed myself badly. I’ll rephrase the question. The subconscious mind knows more than the conscious. When I posed the question, I hoped to hear whose name popped uninvited into your head. I didn’t want accusations.”

“And you won’t get any from me. This is distasteful.” She shifted again on the slippery chair. “Well, if you must know, the first person I thought of was Marcus Toberman.”

“Who is Marcus Toberman?”

“Are you familiar with City Church?”

“City Church. Isn’t it a congregation of gays and lesbians?”

“That’s right. They’re Christians who want to share space in a regular church, want to have their own services and use our facilities. Earlier this year I was surprised when Marcus Toberman represented City Church when it applied to use St. Mark’s. Marcus and Paul had a run-in a couple of years ago, and I didn’t expect him to darken our door again, because he hated Paul. Anyway, Paul supported the proposal, but the congregation vetoed it.”

“And Toberman was angry?”

“I can’t say how Toberman reacted, but Paul was furious.”

“Because the congregation went against him?”

“He hated to be crossed.”

“Tell me about the earlier trouble between Toberman and Reverend Robertson.”

“Marcus came for counselling. He was one of those people who always arrive early, and while he waited, we talked about many things.” Absentmindedly, she felt the holders on the back of her large pearl and gold earrings. “Initially, Marcus said he’d heard Paul was pretty good, and he felt confident Paul wouldn’t give him bad advice, but whatever Paul said to him, it must have gone wrong. One day Marcus stormed in and told me he was going to give Paul hell, because Paul had been on an ego trip and manipulated Marcus to make himself feel good. Marcus accused Paul of ruining his life.”

“When did this happen?”

“Three or four years ago.”

A long interval to wait to murder, but for an obsessive person dwelling on a wrong, the passing time might have intensified the hate. “I don’t suppose you know why he wanted counselling?”

“No. But I can tell you Marcus wasn’t the first or the last person upset by Paul’s advice.”

“How come?”

Barbara shifted and searched for a more comfortable position. “A counsellor should listen, rephrase, and feed back what he hears. He should insist the client draw his own conclusions and make his own decisions. Apparently, Paul couldn’t. If all the world’s a stage, he certainly considered himself a director. He didn’t acknowledge the validity of anyone’s opinion if it differed from his own.”

“You didn’t like Reverend Robertson?”

“I didn’t. He preached great sermons but gave no love. He used comforting phrases, but they didn’t warm you because they didn’t come from his heart. He’d have consoled Mrs. Gardner about her budgie, but only just.”

The wife, the butcher, the partners of lovers, and an unhappy young man—the list of suspects grew longer. The killer, man or woman, was out there, out there searching for something, something Rhona intended to identify and locate before he did.